The only truly secure network is one that is totally inaccessible. Security is always a trade-off between usability and protection. When planning security, you need to find an acceptable balance between the need to secure your network and the need for users to be able to perform their jobs.

In creating a security plan, it is important to realize that the network environment will never be completely secure. The goal is to make it difficult for intruders to obtain unauthorized access, so it isn t worth their time to try or continue attempting to gain access. It is also critical to protect servers from potential disasters and to have methods to restore systems if they become compromised.

A good security plan considers the needs of a company and tries to balance it with their capabilities and current technology. As you ll see in the sections that follow, this means identifying the minimum security requirements for an organization, choosing an operating system, and identifying the configurations necessary to meet these needs. To develop a security plan, you must identify the risks that potentially threaten a network, determine what countermeasures are available to deal with them, figure out what you can afford financially, and implement the countermeasures that are feasible.